


Ribbon of Despair

by FifteenDozenTimes



Category: Beyond Belief - Fandom, The Thrilling Adventure Hour
Genre: Dating, F/M, Tumblr ficlet, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2015-11-12
Packaged: 2018-05-01 05:27:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5193908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FifteenDozenTimes/pseuds/FifteenDozenTimes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the prompt "He handed her a gift wrapped in tragedy and decorated with a ribbon of despair. When she opened it, inside she found hope."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ribbon of Despair

Dave Henderson is one of those large men who thinks if he carries himself with his shoulders low and his arms tight at his sides he won’t take up quite so much space. Donna laughs too loudly, swings her arms too wide when she walks, wears her hair big and her lipstick bright and when she and Sadie walk arm-in-arm anywhere there’s no room for anyone else to pass.

It doesn’t make sense how drawn she is to this soft-spoken hunch-shouldered gentle giant of a man, but drawn she is, and Donna tries not to think too hard about why she wants what she wants. Consequences are for later, caution is for sissies, and Dave Henderson is the man for her.

The first night she asks to buy him a drink, he smiles very kindly at her and declines. Sadie consoles her with a strong drink, an exaggerated pout, and an offer to take her home and make her forget all about that great bear of a man.

Donna’s not ready to be consoled, yet, because this isn’t over. She knows a soft no when she hears one, and Donna isn’t a quitter.

He says no the second time, with a little huff of a laugh that makes her want to get him laughing more, and the third time, when he compliments her persistence. It’s the fourth time when he makes his first, critical mistake - he says “I can’t.”

It takes three more nights for her to turn _can’t_ to _shouldn’t_ to _yes_ ; Donna crows her triumph to the bar, convinces Sadie to buy everyone a celebratory round, and when Dave’s face lights up with a hearty laugh, Donna knows she was right to persist.

*

After four dates, four nights of drinking and dancing and movies, of her hand engulfed by his larger one, sweet dopey smiles and gentlemanly door-opening and seat-pulling-out, Donna is certain the night she decided she would have Dave come Hell or high water was the best night of her life.

Dave must be less sure, though, because Dave won’t give her so much as a chaste goodnight peck at her door. She waits, patiently, for him to start canceling dates so she can fight it out (and win), to try and break up with her so she can refuse to accept, to give her some insight she can really dig her claws into and rearrange things to her liking.

But he always calls, he’s always sweet and considerate, always looks at her like he’s never seen anything so good in his entire life. It’s time to stop waiting.

Dave walks her to her door after their seventh date, as usual, and Donna grabs him by the collar and doesn’t so much pull him down as pull herself up to plant a kiss on his lips and stay there until he relents and let her in. Dave gasps, gets those big hands on her waist to hold her steady, and kisses her back so hard it erases every doubt Donna had about his feelings. He lifts her off the ground, like she barely weighs anything at all, and she laughs into his mouth and wraps her legs around his waist. 

When he pulls away, too soon for Donna’s taste, he looks absolutely lost.

“Donna, there is a thing I need to tell you that I have failed, so far, to tell you. Several months ago, during an investigation, I encountered a creature I was not expecting. This creature bit me, and not very long after that bite, I felt myself changing.”

“Creature, like werewolf?”

“Exactly like a werewolf, in the sense that it was a werewolf that bit me, and now I am one of those.”

It’s ridiculous to be having this conversation now, with her back against her door and her legs around his waist, but Dave looks terrified and she’s pretty sure if she pulls away at all he’ll read it wrong. Donna knows, with absolute certainty, she’s the first person he’s told.

“It would be very reasonable for you, in the interest of self-preservation, to choose to end our relationship because of this information. I didn’t want to tell you, for that reason, but it would be unfair to withhold the information from you any longer. It was unfair at the beginning, but now I think if I do not drive you away before I fall for you any harder, I will never be able to.”

Donna loves her life, her single-girls party penthouse Sadie pays for, her wild nights and wild lovers and the thrill of being on the edges of Sadie’s whole ghost-attracting thing, of flirting with the supernatural as much as she wants to and no more. Donna was looking for a good time, but in this moment she knows, sure as she’s ever known anything, she’s going to marry this man no matter what.

“Thanks for telling me,” she says, and pushes forward to kiss him so hard she nearly knocks them both over.


End file.
